Essays on gothic

Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe's Tamerlane And Other Poems. The writing of Edgar Allan Poe will always be connected to the gothic style of literature because Poe used death, mourning and sadness as major themes, and his first published work actually shows some of the style that would make him famous later in life.

Thus, authors of the 19th century, like Duncan Campbell Scott and Pauline Johnson, found elements of the gothic genre to be a useful way to explore… The rise of Gothic fiction in English literature coincided with the advent of the Romantic Era at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century.

Common elements of gothic literature include mystery, fear, omens, curses, preternatural settings, gloomy atmospheres with a hint of being haunted, some dimension of the supernatural, romance, an arch-villain, nightmare situations, anti-heroes and ladies in distress (Mulvey-Roberts; Smith).

Dark and stormy nights where a young woman is trapped in an unfamiliar place with individuals who have nefarious purposes are the norm and unfortunately for a heroine in a gothic novel, it is unlikely that she will make it out of the story unscathed.